La Belle Vie

rejection

so i just found out that i'm not going to be an undergraduate fellow for the program on international security policy. this is not a huge shock. there are plenty of people in this school who are far more into IR theory than i am, (see comment about Robert Pape below). and i'm getting damn used to handling rejection letters. before i arrived at this school, i'd only received one in my life, and that was from Princeton. now, i could never give you an accurate count. in fact, i'm so used to reading them, i've even started helping one of my bosses write them, which is a form of catharsis, i suppose. but still, it hurts. just like i'm not at all surprised that a certain person hasn't answered my last e-mail, yet every once in awhile, when i hit the refresh button and come up with nothing, i get sad.

also, i'm a little pissed off because in asking for applications they requested an unnofficial transcript and "two paragraphs on why you want to be a fellow." so i wrote two semi-humourous and interesting paragraphs on my fascination with international politics. then in my rejection letter, they described the criteria candidates were evaluated with as including "security-related extra-curricular activities and future plans." maybe i'm being obtuse, but i feel like you should give candidates a clear picture of the criteria that they're going to be evaluated on BEFORE you evaluate them. I didn't include my MUNUC participation in my essay because i don't think it's really that relevant to WHY i wanted to be a fellow. but if i'd known that security-related extracurriculars were important, OF COURSE i would have stuck that in. in a way, this is also analogous to my love life. from what they tell you at the beginning, it seems like, to acheive romantic success, one just needs to look reasonably good, have good personal grooming habits, and be a nice/interesting person. but i think i do a decent job of all that, and i'm still sitting around every weekend begging my roommates and their boyfriends to let me tag along. will someone please send me a list of the criteria that's being used to reject me?

ok, i'm gonna get over myself now and go finish the NY Times crossword puzzle or something. check out this site and for a little fun, zoom in all the way.

love y'all

posted by Monica @ 12:02 PM